Track Listing

1. Tickled Pink
2. Dark Black
3. Look
4. Around My Goose
5. Calm Down
6. Did You See That
7. Do The Needful

Product Details

• Released on: 2004-10-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

From Amazon.com
Veteran alto saxophonist and flutist Henry Threadgill enters fresh territory with Up Popped the Two Lips. It's the first album by his intriguing, all-acoustic Zooid sextet. Along with a simultaneously issued new effort by another band of his, Make a Move, it also marks his first association with a small independent label in many a moon. A longtime proponent of world sounds, Threadgill plays international matchmaker here in drafting Moroccan oud player Tarik Benbrahim into a string section that includes acoustic guitarist Liberty Ellman and cellist Dana Leong. By turns jaunty and mysterious, funky and reflective, the music is characteristically Theadgillian with its contrasts between light and dark, juxtaposition of flighty carnival melodies and assertive zigzag rhythms, tricky time signatures and fulsome unison lines. And in Jose Davila, Threadgill has another excellent tuba player to man an instrument of great importance to his patented sound. But with Benbrahim and Ellman lightening the textures and drummer Dafnis Prieto nimbly threading through them--and doing his share of slashing as well--this may be Threadgill's springiest unit. Up Popped the Two Lips is certainly Threadgill's most consistently strong effort since 1993's Too Much Sugar for a Dime. --Lloyd Sachs

Chronique amazon.fr
Après s'être heurté à l'incompréhension et la fin du soutien de la major qui l'avait accueilli pendant des années, le saxophoniste chicagoan Henry Threadgill a décidé de monter sa propre structure à New York où il réside. Baptisée Pi Recordings, elle lui offre la possibilité de matérialiser ses préoccupations musicales. En 2001, ce sont ainsi deux groupes qu'il gère parallèlement et qui sortent des disques : Make a Move et Zooid. Le premier est sa formation électrique, le second, son sextette basé sur des compositions qui laissent la part belle à des improvisations pour la plupart très cadrées. Avec Zooid (tuba et violoncelle y remplacent la basse électrique, le oud, le vibraphone, et la guitare acoustique, la guitare électrique), les alliages de timbres sont plus travaillés, sophistiqués, le groove n'étant pas pour autant délaissé mais plus subtilement implicite et le brassage d'influences, du folk à la musique classique, plus vaste. À l'instar de Everybody's Mouth's A Book, Up Popped The Two Lips est un disque majeur d'un des saxophonistes clés de l'A.A.C.M. qui, trente ans après ses débuts, reste encore à découvrir. Cinq étoiles ! --Philippe Robert

Customer Reviews

tight band
this band is very tight. I specially enjoyed the drummer's work on this recording.

First great jazz album of the new millenium
Original concept? Yeah. Unique instrumentation (including cello, tuba, and oud)? Yep. Flawless execution? You got it. It's all here. Henry Threadgill, master iconoclast, has come up with something simple incredible. He always seems to know exactly the right move. Just a small example: relegating that weird guitar master, Liberty Ellman, to acoustic guitar. Why not let him wail away on his electric axe? Because by reining him in, he gets the exact sonic texture he wants, with the added bonus of some truly exotic sounds wrenched from the acoustic.

This is the album where Henry Threadgill's years of laboring in the fields of musical weirdness finally come home to roost: Everything comes together in spectacular fashion. There's not a false note in the bunch. If you've got big enough ears, check it out. I guarentee you won't be disappointed.

Zooid, Threadgill's international string sextet
I've been eagerly anticipating hearing Henry Threadgill's new band, Zooid, since reading about their NYC debut a year ago. Released simultaneously with "Everybody's Mouth's a Book," with the Make a Move quintet, "Up Popped the Lips" marks yet another textural innovation for Threadgill.

Zooid is a string sextet, with acoustic guitar, cello and oud. Yes, oud! Must be a first for jazz. Tarik Benbrahim, the oud player, is Moroccan, tuba player Jose Davila is Puerto Rican, and drummer Dafnis Prieto is Cuban! After the first several listens, I'm not quite as impressed by this record as I am by EMAB (see my review). The album closes strongly -- "Did You See That" features oud and flute, and "Do the Needful" is the most dynamic track, with an urgent alto solo, rollicking drums and tuba, and lovely strings for backdrop. Elsewhere UPTL falls prey to Threadgill's lugubrious tendency and loses momentum from time to time. Despite the excellent sound (with mixing by Bill Laswell), the three string instruments are sometimes indistinct, which must then be a problem with the composition, not the production. So if you are going to hear just one of the two new Threadgill, records, I have to recommend EMAB over "Up Popped the Two Lips." But why choose?

Henry Threadgill has been signed by major labels twice that I can recall, by Novus (a subsidiary of BMG) in the 80s -- "You Know the Number" was the first of 3 releases by his Sextet, and it's time to reissue them! -- and then by Sony in the 90s, which released 3 records by his Very Very Circus and Make a Move in 1995 and 1997. Otherwise, he has recorded for a number of independent labels, including Black Saint/Soul Note, so returning to an independent label is nothing new. Threadgill has never compromised his vision, and while I'm sure he wouldn't have minded making more money over the years, I'm glad he hasn't quit!